David Day was woken by a waft of meat-scent.
It was a smell he knew intimately — roasting mammoth. Mammoths fattened to a fine marbling of lean and fat, cut into chunks and seared over a high flame; on the quality of the ingredient alone, it was already an exceptional delicacy.
The mammoths bred for this meat, so they said, had originally been raised to sacrifice to the Snake God of the harvest, but as the Snake God vanished these mammoths gradually became a delicacy only the royal house could taste.
And now, these mammoths were serving their original purpose after all.
Not far off, a small mountain of black and gold lay coiled before a great bonfire, its gaze fixed on the mammoths set over the flames.
The good news: the terrible Snake God hadn't seen him get up.
The bad news: he didn't even rate so much as a glance from that Snake God.
"How? I clearly......"
The thought of the fight just past sent a tremor through David Day's mind.
Even the fiercest sabertooth doesn't hold back when chasing a rabbit, let alone when facing the Snake God the Ignis people revered to this day. He had made his every preparation; he had loosed his single mightiest strike the very instant he struck.
Yet all of it had meant nothing.
The attack he'd taken such pride in, before that mountainous body, had been as laughable as a flame kindled by children.
In a single exchange, everything had been undone.
His arrangements, his preparations, and the high-tier mages he'd gathered up specially to bolster his strength — those high-tier mages were now ground utterly into the earth, whole bodies flattened, like so many clumsy daubs of a painting.
Only David Day himself, with the strongest bones and the thickest layer of fat, had barely managed to come away merely mortally wounded.
Not an inch of him wasn't in pain; David Day felt nearly every bone in his body had been crushed.
But as the mightiest mage of the Ignivas family, as the man nearest to godhood, he still clenched his teeth and forced himself upright.
He absolutely could not stay here a moment longer. His move against the Snake God just now had already offended the divine itself; if the Snake God found him still alive, all that awaited him was a second, merciless grinding.
He had to live on. He had to live on no matter what.
"After all, only by living can I get a second chance at godhood.
"After all, this time...... I truly have grasped the key to strength."
Thinking this, David Day cast one deep look at the vast snake-body in the distance.
And then, with an agility utterly at odds with that broad frame, he fled far away.
***
Just as David Day was making his retreat, two figures were heading the opposite way, walking straight toward that great, bright bonfire.
The one in the lead was, of all people, the young Ignis man who had so lately been hounded to the brink of death.
And behind him, the very mage who had nearly burned him to a cinder was now all obsequious smiles, bobbing his head and bowing.
"You must put in a good word for me before the Snake God. I saw through the royal house's wolfish ambitions long ago."
The mage's face was wreathed in smiles — not a trace left of his earlier haughtiness.
"And this sabertooth...... is one enough? Shall I go fetch two more?"
"Heh."
To the mage's fawning, the young Ignis man only sneered.
"Weren't you just saying you'd go to the royal house for a share of the god's flesh? I remember it all, clear as day."
"There was nothing for it back then...... how was I to know you weren't a spy the royal house had sent to sound out my heart?"
To the sneer, the mage put on a face of perfect sincerity.
"The royal house is mighty, and a man who isn't even a high-tier mage — how would I dare cross them? That's why I had to speak those words against my own heart; only so could I survive in this Ignis City riddled with traitors...... but say what I might, in my heart I've always leaned toward the Snake God. Why else would I have set my pasture at the foot of the sacred mountain?"
At this, the mage's expression turned more pious still, as though he truly worshipped the Snake God day and night with a heart full of reverence.
"I set my pasture by the sacred mountain precisely to wait for the day the Snake God woke, so I could offer up my fattest livestock as His sacrifice......"
"Heh."
The young Ignis man could no longer be bothered to humor the mage; he simply strode forward.
Weak as his own strength was, mounting any counterattack against this mage would be next to impossible — but if he could only reach the Snake God and lay the mage's blasphemies before Him, the great Snake God would likely need only a puff of breath to scatter the mage to ash.
As for whether the mage would dare stop him......
He was the Snake God's envoy now, the first living man to witness the Snake God's awakening, and in his hands he carried sabertooth meat about to be offered to the Snake God. How would this mage dare lift a hand against him?
"Once I've met the god, you're a dead man."
The memory of the corner he'd lately been driven into had the young Ignis man resolved to cut the weeds and dig out the roots, and leave no trouble behind.
So, even with the bone-deep, instinctive dread he felt toward that mountainous snake-body coiled by the fire.
He gritted his teeth and bore the terror down, and walked toward it, step by step.
"Great Snake God! Here is an offering presented to You!"
The young Ignis man shouted at the snake-body before him, striving to make his posture, sabertooth meat held high, all the more reverent.
But perhaps because the shout was too feeble, the vast snake-body before him made not a stir.
Which set the mage beside him eyeing him afresh, his gaze sharpening with suspicion.
Luckily, this sustained shouting did the trick in the end. By the time the young Ignis man had all but shredded his throat, the great snake's head at last dipped down out of the air.
And in that pair of snake eyes, the young Ignis man saw something that could be called approval.
As the equally vast tail came reaching over and swept the sabertooth meat aside, the young Ignis man was sure of it.
The Snake God liked his offering.
"O great Snake God! Let me lay bare this traitor's evil deeds for You!"
Sure of it now, he set at once to settling scores.
"This mage, who wields the power of a god, has spoken words that blaspheme the god — he even schemed to slay the di—"
"—yísong gòlo yígè yùgzit liòng zhín hèhò liòng."
And there, the words from his mouth dissolved into something else entirely — to Du Yi's ears, nothing but a string of meaningless noise.
It was just then that the vast snake-head up in the air spoke as well, its voice like rolling thunder.
"Áisi p'fún fón hì......?"
The words barely half out — and both parties to the exchange froze where they stood.